1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus, which has a function of saving transmitted or received image data all at once or saving the image data selectively in an external memory device through a network such as a LAN.
2. Description of the Related Art
The conventional facsimile apparatus is connected to an archive terminal device that can receive an e-mail through a network. The conventional facsimile apparatus saves the image data transmitted or received by facsimile or by an e-mail attached image data (hereafter called Internet facsimile), and has a function of saving (archiving) the transmitted or received image data in the archive terminal device. As transmitted or received image data is saved in the external device, the facsimile apparatus does not need to have a large storage capacity, and the transmitted or received image data can be saved safely.
The facsimile apparatus archives transmitted or received image data, regardless whether or not the traffic is high in a network that becomes a transmission path to the archive terminal device such as a LAN (Local Area Network) or the Internet, so that the communication status may worsen if the traffic in the network such as the LAN or the Internet is high. The status may then affect operating effectiveness throughout the company if the LAN is used as the network in the company.
The archive terminal device can easily save about ten to twenty accumulated image data received from the facsimile apparatus, however the burden is increased in operating and managing the terminal device when the archive device saves about 1000 to 2000 image data. Thus, the burden has been tried to be relieved.
The facsimile apparatus saves the entire transmitted image data in the archive terminal device regardless whether or not the transmitted document (image data) reaches the destination. Thus, the image data that does not reach the destination is also saved though it may not need to be saved, so that memory resources may be wasted in the archive terminal device. Moreover, it may be inconvenient to manage the saved image data, as it is difficult to identify whether the saved image data has reaches the destination.